Kathy's herbal-medical blog

My pal Kathy Abascal has started a blog.

The URL is http://herbsandinfluenza.com/blog/ , and she's done three top-notch posts so far:
1) mandatory flu vaccines: good for big pharma, bad for the great unwashed masses
2) beta blockers can cause dementia
3) useless drugs, and outright dangerous ones. As in, SSRI anti-depressants make you depressed ... I've seen that elsewhere, but it's nice to get references to shove under turned-up noses.

Anyway, Kathy has written a nice book on historical influenza epidemics (and pandemics): Herbs & Influenza, and what the eclectics and physiomedicalists used way back when. I have the book, it's a nice work, but alas, I've so far only had time to skim through it. It's on my heap to read: it looks fascinating. Alternatives to current flu meds (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, mostly) are vital, if the bird flu ever takes off. NSAIDs are a very bad idea in any really bad flu epidemic.

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Me and Kathy used to hare off on our free weekends, back when we both attended the SWSBM in 1998. We went all over southern Arizona, and it was great fun. 1998 was one of the rainy springs in the SW, so the deserts had spectacular flowery shows -- it was a very good year for doing herbal things.